The six foreign language news editors, Karna Swanson, English; Gisele Plantec, French; Inma Alvarez, Spanish; Mirko Testa, Italian; Alexandre Ribeiro, Portuguese; Tony Assaf, Arabic, announced "… with deep regret our decision to leave the agency after many years of service to the Church and to all the agency's readers."

"After years of fruitful collaboration with the Legionaries of Christ, we disagree with the decision of the congregation to underline the institutional dependence of the agency on the Legion. The initial vision of Zenit was never to make it a service of a particular congregation, but rather of the universal Church. This has been the spirit with which we have worked throughout the years, and we could not betray this spirit now. We warmly thank all our readers for their loyalty and support throughout the years, and we hope to be able to continue to work for the Church and for all those who seek the truth, in another manner, but always with the same spirit."

Last week, Zenit's founder, Jesús Colina resigned citing the disagreement on "administrative transparency" with the Legion of Christ and the affair involving the founder of the Legion of Christ, the late Mexican priest, Marcial Maciel - who the Vatican established to be a paedophile, a drug addict and who had fathered a number of children with various women.

"Father Marcial Maciel's conduct and the way in which the congregation informed us of this, concealing important facts, has often led to us not carrying out our duty of providing information that is in line with the Pope and the Holy See's vision, fully."

Established 14 years ago as an independent agency seeking to report on "the world seen from Rome," Zenit has established a strong presence on the Internet, with daily editions in seven languages.

Colina was appointed a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications by Pope Benedict XVI, and has received the Path to Peace Award from the Path to Peace Foundation, which works in close collaboration with the Holy See's Permanent Observer to the United Nations.

In an exclusive interview from Rome with Catholic News Agency, Colina explained the details behind his departure.

What are the reasons for your resignation?

The current chairman of the board at Zenit, Legionary priest Father Oscar Nader, requested I take this step based on the view that as a person linked to various Catholic communications initiatives, I do not offer the clear idea of the institutional identity of Zenit that the Legionaries of Christ wish to communicate from now on.

How do you explain this decision?

Well, in reality I think this decision is the culmination of a gradual mutual loss of trust which began several years ago. The manner in which the Legion of Christ hid the information about Fr. Marcial Maciel, which was discovered bit by bit by the press, caused a breakdown of trust in this institution on the part of the director of the news agency.

I understand the difficult situation in which the superiors of the Legionaries of Christ found themselves. Now in public statements they have said they already had proof of Fr. Maciel's different lives for years before his death. Nevertheless, despite the statement issued by the Holy See in 2006, they continued to present him as a role model, even at his death and after his death.

Read Full Story: CNA